


Ghost

by ConstanceComment



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, M/M, New Lore Non-Compliant, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstanceComment/pseuds/ConstanceComment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twisted Fate runs into Graves for the first time since the betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old idea I wrote down almost two years ago and never published, because it didn't go anywhere. But hey, it's the end of the summer, and the fics I'm writing for these two right now are super long, and won't be ready for a while. So I figured, why not post this anyway?
> 
> Because this is and old idea, it's not compliant with _Burning Tides_ , or any of the new lore, outside of the fact that the Institute of War (and subsequently, the League itself) does not exist. So, TF still betrayed Graves to get magic in this one.

You don’t regret anything. The benefits were too high, too grand, to let them slip through your fingers. ‘Once in a lifetime’ means what it means no matter how many times the words have passed your lips as lies.

Graves looks different. It's been awhile, obviously he looks different.

You catch details at random, your eyes skittering from feature to feature: there’s an ugly scar that trails down from his neck and into the collar of his shirt, white with age and puckered like a brand, or a long-gone infection. It’s clear that his nose has been broken more than once since the last time you saw him, not that it had ever been unbroken before. Graves’ face is lined, hair shot through with bullet gray strands that gather most prominently at his temples. The cigar is the same, smell acrid and familiar.

Most striking, in the fleeting moment you first catch his eye, Graves looks tired, empty. But it’s clear when he spots you; recognition sweeps a fire into his eyes that is only passingly similar to the one you used to know from schemes, and battle. There is no feral excitement in this, no wildfire. All that weariness is packed away in a flare of rage, banked and terrible, like the purpose of a forge.

Unlike you, Graves is nothing like the man he was, but he is still everything you remember.

And it hits you like a tidal wave, with ten years of momentum that you had ignored: this was a man who loves you. Whoever it is you’re looking at now is just his ghost.

 _The Outlaw_ , is the name they’ve been calling him since he got loose, first man to break out of the Locker since they built it. Not a bad one, all told. It fits him well enough, seeing as he never cared for laws, much. He never liked being told what to do. But you always called him _Malcolm_ , and then you’d put him away in a box to forget about, a good thing from a long time ago. You don’t like looking back, but it’s not every day someone returns from the dead.

Your hands have always been covered in blood. You’ve used lust before. Used love before, too. Been used yourself, because that’s the way the world works. This case was nothing special. You don’t let yourself regret.

That Graves puts a gun in your face in the span of your next blink certainly helps.

“Malcolm,” you say, and your tone is oil slick, wary. You feel too many things at the sight of him, emotions you can only ignore. The gun is impossibly huge, but it fits in his hands, like they were meant to hold it.

If Graves has a reply, it’s lost in the click of a safety, the exhale of smoke. He always managed to be so expressive around his cigar; now isn’t any different. But you’ve never seen that look on him before: tired, empty anger.

It occurs to you that you should leave.

You need a little bit of focus to open your gates. A card in your hands; close your eyes, think of somewhere. You’ve figured, after all these years, that it’s the warping of space that is your real power, judging by how easily it comes to you. Every other trick you can do is just an extension of that, the force of motion coupled to objects that should never move on their own. Slowing someone, stopping them entirely, making cardboard edges fly fast enough to cut: these are nuanced tasks that take luck, precision, a talisman.

But if you want to go, all you have to do is want to be gone.

When the world stops spinning, you’re in Demacia. It’s the middle of the night and you’re up to your ankles in sand, the landing harder than it should have been. The tide’s rolling out, but the sand is still damp, chill where it presses against the legs of your pants and snakes into your boots. Overhead, there are stars and no moon, and the beach is deserted now, even if you can see the faint, shadowed outline of a coastal drink shack, still here after ten years.

Whenever you jump without a destination in mind, whenever you’re seeking, instinctively, somewhere safe, your magic takes you here. And it’s not— you can say with honesty that the moment you felt magic racing through your veins was the happiest you’ve ever felt. But here, in Demacia, playing rich tourist for the week after you robbed Priggs blind— this was definitely the safest you’d ever allowed yourself to be.

Having someone to watch your back made all the difference, then. Now you know, for certain, that you’ll never stop looking over your shoulder until the day that one of you dies.

You jump away from the beach, gate open at your feet. When you land, it’s Bilgewater, the other side of that same sea, just a little darker, despite the city’s lamps. It’s not lost on you that you met him, here. But it’s a different town now, like you’re different men. There’s no reason for you to stay.

You don’t let yourself regret.


End file.
